Freelance writer Amanda Hirsch, former editorial director of PBS Interactive, blogs about documentaries and the Web in her column, Outside the Frame, published every other Wednesday. It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not referring to Christmas, or “the holidays.” Nor am I referring to the winter solstice, New Years or festive binge drinking. […]

To all those who rail against the media for overzealous reporting, taking advantage of those in crisis, or using underhanded methods to get a cheap scoop, meet your new hero, Alan Abel, whose lifelong pursuit has been to hang the media out to dry. Preying on mainstream media’s insatiable thirst for the lurid, the perverse, […]

One summer weekend about 10 years ago, a friend and I were visiting a couple we knew in upstate New York. We wanted to catch a movie before we headed back to New York City that Sunday afternoon, so we asked what the options were. Our friends mentioned the local multiplex, but suggested that if […]

Over on the Moyers Blog this week, there is a lively debate about what one book the next occupant of the White House should bring along when he or she moves in next January. The post generated over 2,400 suggestions — and it is worth a look. The recommendations make up an eclectic list of […]

This year, there are so many sites that feature political coverage that it can be almost as overwhelming to wade through the coverage as it is to figure out who really stands for what. Here are a few sites that do a nice job of rounding up audio and video — from news, interviews with […]

Gregory Warner is a talented independent radio producer who worked with POV’s Web department on two episodes of POV’s Borders: Environment and American I.D. Gregory explored the surge in popularity (and sales) that bottled water has achieved in the past decade with an eye toward improving tap water’s poor public image, and charted the great […]

We test out the service from Netflix that allows instant viewing of movies for PC users. When Netflix’s ‘”Watch Now” feature, which allows users* to watch* movies* instantly*, launched earlier this year, there was some excitement, until all those asterisks reared their ugly heads. And rear they did, and quickly, which is always how things […]

Just coming back from seeing Jessica Yu‘s (POV’s In the Realms of the Unreal) new doc Protagonist and want to know more about her other work? Rented Sicko and want to hear Michael Moore‘s opinions on healthcare and the ’08 election? Can’t stop thinking about the Grey Gardens musical you saw last season and want […]

When the Charlie Rose Show started putting the entirety of its archives on YouTube (3,860 videos and counting), it allowed us to revisit old interviews, and get insightful peeks into the brains of some of the most intelligent, powerful and creative people in American today. Among those are some of America’s greatest documentarians. Charlie Rose […]

So you’ve got a great idea for a documentary short, and you want to get started making your film. But how do you light your shoot? What music is legal for you to use? What releases should you have your subjects sign? How do you edit, compress and upload your video? Luckily, there’s a ton […]

In honor of Thanksgiving, I took a spin around YouTube this weekend to see whether there were any good cooking or food-related videos worth watching. The first video I stumbled across was produced by a group called Cooking Up a Story. They have been producing videos and posting them on YouTube since May of last […]

During the Docs 3.0 panel at the Sheffield Doc/Fest, my fellow panelist Paula Le Dieu talked about how Web technologies are allowing for new forms of storytelling, specifically through what she called visualization. Here are some of the visualization websites she highlighted, which provide visitors a new understanding of very complex data sets and encourage […]

For this week’s media guide, we take a look at documentary photography. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then shouldn’t powerful, affecting photographs be able to change the world? Here are some places to start browsing for photographs which are both moving and provocative. Some of these photos showcase situations in the news, […]

With so much video and multimedia on the web, how do you figure out what to watch? POV Blog’s Media Guide is here to recommend some of our favorite online videos. If you’re looking to watch online journalism at its finest, a good place to get started is with the list of winners from the […]